Wessington Springs herald. (Wessington Springs, Aurora County, Dakota [S.D.]) 1883-1891, 1887-05-20
ound. The sweat On her brow is the spray

sound. The sweat On her brow is the spray
dashed up from the river Of death. The
clock strikes -four" and the rosy dawr
tice upon the pale form that looks like a
detained specter of the night. Soon in a
mad house she will mistake her ringlets
for curling serpents, and thrust her white
hand through the bars of the prison, and
smite her head, rubbing it back as though
to push the scalp from the skull, shrieking:
"My brain! my brain!" oh, stand off from
that! Why will you go sounding your way
amid the reefs and warning buoys
when there is such vast ocean in which
you may voyage. all sail set?
There is one other thing shall say this
morning before 1 leave you, whether you
want to hear it or not. That's, that con-
slider the lascivious pictorial literature of
the day as most tremendous for ruin. There
is no one who can like good pictures better
than do. The quickest and most con.
densed way of impressing the public mind
his brush for few favorites the engraver
does by his knife for the million. What
the author accomplishes by fifty pages the
artist does by flash. The best part of a
painting that costs $1O,OOO you may buy
for 10 cents. Fine paintings belong to the
aristocracy of art. Engravings belong to
the democracy of art. You do we'll to
gather good pictures in your homes.
Spread them before your children after
the tea hour is past and the evening circle
is gathered. Throw them on the invalid s
couch. Strew them through the rail train
to cheer the traveller on his journey. Tack
them on the wall of the nursery. Gather
them in albums and portfolios. God speed
the good pictures on their way with
ministries Of knowledge and mercy!
| But what shall say OF the prostitution
of this art to purposes of iniqulty. These
street corner. They smite the vision of
the young man with pollution. Many a
young man buying copy has bought his
eternal discontinue. There may be
enough poison in one bad picture to poison
one soul, and that soul may poison ten,
and ten fifty, and the fifty hundreds, and
the hundreds thousands, until nothing but
the measuring line of eternity can tell the
height, the depth, and ghastliness, and
horror of the great undoing. The work of
death that the wicked author does in a
whole book the bad engraver may 90 on
half side of pictorial. Under the guise
of pure mirth, the young man buys one OF
these sheets. He unrolls it before his
comrades amid roars of laughter, but long
after the paper is gone the result may per-
haps be seen in the blasted imagnations
of those who saw it. The queen Of death
holds banquet every night, and these
periodicals are the printed invitetions to
her guests. Alas that the fair brow of
American art should be blotched with this
plague spot, and that philanthropists,
bothering themselves about smaller evils,
should lift up no united and vehement
voice against this great calamity!
Young man. buy not this moral strych-
nine for your SOUL Pick not up this nest
of coiled adders for your pocket! Patron
ize no news stand that keeps them! Have
your room bright with good engravings;
but for these outrageous pictor:als have
| not one wall, not one bureau, not one
pocket. A man is no better than the
picture he loves to look at. If your eyes
are not pure your heart cannot be. At a
news stand one can guess the character of
man by the kind of pictorial he pur-
| chases. When the devil fails to get man
to read bad book he sometimes succeeds
in getting him to look at bad picture.
When satan goes fishing he does not
care whether it is long line or short
line, if he only draws his victim in, Be-
ware of lascivious pictorials, young man
i'll the name of Almighty God | charge
you.
If Gave this morning successfully laid
down any principles by which you may
judge in regard 10 books and newspapers,
then have done something of which ]
shall not be ashamed on the day which
shall try every mans work Of what sort
it is.
Cherish good books and newspapers
Beware Of the bad ones. One column
may save your soul; one paragraph may
ruin it. Benjamin Franklin said that the
ing Good" nodded his entire life. The as
sassin of Lord Russell declared that he
was led into crime by reading one vivid
romance. The consecrated John Angel
James, than whom England never pro-
duced better man, declared in his old
days that he had never yet got over the
evil effects of having for fifteen minutes
once read a bad book. But need not &c
SO far off. could come near home and
tell YOU of something that occurred in nv
college days. could tell you of a COM
rade who was great-hearted, noble, and
generous. He was studying for an
honorable profession, but he had au
infdel book in his trunk, and he said
to me one day: ode Witt, would you
like to read it?" said: eyes, ]
WOulu. lOOk lue DOCK anu r600 IL tO1
only few minutes. was really startled
with what l saw there, and handed the
book back to him and said: "You had
better destroy that book" No, he kept it,
He read it. He rercad it. After while
he gave up religion as myth. He gave
up God as nonentity. He gave up the
Bible as q fable. He gave up the church
of Christ as a useless institution. He
gave up good morals as being unneces-
sarily stringent. 1 have heard of him but
twice in many years. The time before the
last 1 heard of him he was confirmed
inebriate. The last heard of him he was
coming out of an insane asylum-in body,
mind, and soul an awful wreck. believe
that one infdel book killed him for two
worlds.
Gohome to-day and look through your
library, and then, having looked through
your library, look on the stand where you
keep your pictorials and newspapers, and
apply the Christian principles I have laid
down this morning. If there is anything
in your home that cannot stand the test, dc
not give it away, for it might spoil an
immortal soul; do not sell it, for the money
you get would be the price of blood, but
rather kindle fire on your kitchen hearth
or in your back yard and then drop the
poison in it, and keep stirring the blaze
until from preface to appendix there shall
not ho cipp1o loft owl